


Life is for Learning

by creatureofhobbit



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 23:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3707647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the finals approach, the Keating 5 reflect on what they have learned about themselves over their time working for Annalise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life is for Learning

Asher learned that his name was more appropriate than he’d ever realised before. Was it from the Bible, that quote about having a millstone round one’s neck? Because that was the way he’d carried his surname all these years, and it was only now that he’d seen his father for what he really was that he finally understood that. Maybe even his first name, too, if it really did mean “a virtuous man who strives only for the general good”. His parents said it did, and that the name would stand him in good stead for his future.

He’d been proud of his father’s career as a judge when he was a kid. When a guy in his class in grade school had started on him because his father had sentenced him for some felony that Asher couldn’t even remember now, Asher had determined to rise above it. Everyone knew Bob was a douche, and his father was probably an even bigger one, who had probably deserved all he got. Asher’s father had done the right thing. And Asher was determined that one day when he was older, he’d follow in his father’s footsteps.

He’d always been brought up to accept that his father’s word was law and was never to be challenged. But once Asher had found out about his father turning a blind eye to the perjured evidence, he wondered whether there had been any other cases where his father had done the same thing. How much of his father’s reputation had been based on lies? 

Asher had wondered what he was going to have to do. Expose his father in order to win the case, or keep his mouth shut and take the chance that Annalise might lose and an innocent man be sent to Death Row. In the end, he hadn’t had to make that choice, since he’d managed to find a way of proving the link between the witness and the senator without needing to bring his father’s name into it. Initially, that was a relief. But now he was pissed at himself at the fact that there was a part of him that still wanted to defend his father and he knew he would still do what he had to do to keep the Millstone name from being dragged through the mud. The lifestyle he’d always lorded over his peers was tarnished for him now that he knew where it really came from, yet a part of Asher still wanted to maintain that, to carry on as though nothing ever happened.

And now he had learned that his desire to always do the right thing wasn’t as strong as he’d always thought.

 

Connor learned that he wasn’t quite the Don’t Care Connor that everyone had seen him as in the past, and that he was capable of caring about someone after all. 

There was a part of him that had enjoyed it when he realised that the perfect fiancé Michaela had been bragging about the entire time he’d known her was the same Aiden that he’d slept with in their boarding school days and Michaela clearly had no idea. And he’d enjoyed it even more that day when Michaela was desperate for him to just piss off and leave them alone together, but Aiden was clearly more interested in catching up on the whereabouts of everyone from their class with Connor than talking vol au vents and Vera Wang with Michaela.

He’d felt much the same way when he slept with Pax. If he got to have a little fun while helping Annalise win the case, what harm would it do? It wasn’t as if Oliver would ever find out, and even if he did, it wasn’t as though Connor had ever promised him a commitment. Oliver was a valuable source of help to Connor in helping Annalise win her cases, and the fact that he got sex out of it was just the icing on the cake.

Now, every time he closed his eyes, he saw Pax falling from the window, and he knew that that was on him. If he hadn’t tried to use sex to win the case, sure, Annalise might not have won it in the end, but Pax would still be alive. And Connor would still have Oliver. It wasn’t until Connor was faced with losing Oliver that he realised how much he had cared for him after all. After he went over to Oliver’s only for that meathead to send him packing, Connor started seeing Oliver in the nightmares too, stood watching as Pax fell, shaking his head in disgust at Connor.

The day of Sam Keating’s death, Connor knew there was only one person he could turn to, and that was Oliver. Right there, in that moment, he’d thought there was a chance for them after all. But then when Oliver had wanted to know why he was so upset, and Connor couldn’t explain about what had happened with Sam and had had to pretend to have a drug addiction, Connor had realised he could never have that fresh start he wanted after all, because what he had done would always get in the way.

When he’d told his sister over Christmas that Oliver was his boyfriend, Connor had wished so much that it was still true. And then Oliver had agreed to give him another chance, he’d met his friends, and he actually wanted to help Connor get over his fictitious drug addiction. Finally, Don’t Care Connor the slut had found someone he believed he could make it work with.

Then Oliver got his test results, and Connor knew that he was going to face a big challenge in his relationship. 

He could have walked away. But now he had learned that he didn’t want to.

 

Michaela had always thought she knew how her life was going to turn out. She’d go through law school, graduate top of her class, marry Aiden, get a job in a well known law firm, eventually making partner, finally turn her back on where she’d come from.

Now she has learned that she cannot control everything in her life. She’d taken Aiden back, papered over the cracks, tried to pretend that everything was okay between them again and she couldn’t see Connor all over him every time she closed her eyes. When Aiden’s mother had first tried to present her with that prenup, a part of Michaela had felt like ripping it up, thrusting the pieces in her face and then telling her exactly what her precious son had done. But she knew that if she’d done that, the life she had planned for herself would slip further from her grasp.

And top of the class? She couldn’t even keep that freaking trophy. How had Richie Rich managed to get his hands on it anyway? Not through any stroke of brilliance, that was for sure. He’d found that link between the senator and the witness completely by accident.

The future Michaela had planned for herself looked to be slipping out of her grasp through no fault of her own the day Wes killed Sam Keating. Michaela was never meant to get involved in the dramas of anyone they were defending, and Rebecca may have been Wes’s girlfriend but she was no exception. And now Michaela couldn’t even control her own fate but had to place it in the hands of Annalise Keating and the rest of these people who wouldn’t even let her come clean. Her engagement ring was out there somewhere, who knew where, potentially linking her to the crime, and there was nothing Michaela could do.

She seized the chance to reclaim some of her old life when she agreed to sign the prenup. With the wedding planning back on, Michaela finally had something in her life that she could control again. And even when Aiden ended things over Christmas, initially Michaela hoped it would be just temporary, that she could get him back and they could go back to the way things were.

She realised that she was really taking back control the day she told Aiden’s mother where to stick it. No more living a lie, Michaela was finally free to be herself again, to live her life the way SHE wanted instead of conforming to the expectations of that woman.

Then Laurel confessed that she’d had Michaela’s lost ring all along and had held on to it in order to prevent her from confessing. And Michaela wondered whether she was always destined to be someone’s puppet after all.

 

Wes had believed Annalise when she had told him that if he joined her firm, he’d become someone that he actually liked. At least, he had eventually believed her, once he was sure that she hadn’t asked him because he’d walked in on her and Nate.

And at first, it had seemed like that was so. He was making a difference to people’s lives, and he was helping Rebecca get off the charges for the crime she hadn’t committed. He was doing well in his work for Annalise and in the class, and maybe one day he’d even manage to lose that nickname of Waitlist that Connor had stuck him with.

Now he wondered whether by taking this job, it had made him into someone he disliked after all. He wasn’t even sure he recognised the Wes Gibbins who could take a life, and then lie to his friends in order that they would go along with covering it up. But he’d told himself at the time that it was all for Rebecca, that he couldn’t let Sam attack her, that he’d do it again if it was what he had to do.

Then he learned the truth about Rudy. No longer certain what had really happened to Lila, not knowing who he could trust now, Wes learned that the truth wasn’t always as it seemed after all.

 

If you had asked Laurel before she started working for Annalise, she would have told you that she was nothing like her family. And that was a good thing. 

Now she was starting to understand that she was more like them than she would ever have been willing to admit. 

She’d gone into law with the intention of separating herself from her family and the life they led, of building her career around protecting the innocent. But it was only after Sam’s death that Laurel knew she had that same self preservation instinct as them and would do whatever it took to protect herself. As she watched Connor fall to pieces and Michaela lose that control that she was determined to present to the rest of the world, Laurel was the only one who wasn’t cracking under the pressure.

As Laurel pocketed Michaela’s ring and allowed her to think she’d lost it while disposing of Sam’s body, as she hinted to Frank about how nervous she felt about Connor’s car still being out there knowing full well he would take care of it, she knew she would do whatever it took to make sure she was never going to go down for her crime.

But it wasn’t until she was stood there, Rebecca Sutter’s dead body in front of her, that Laurel finally learned just how far she would go. She was confident that none of the others were going to come clean now, Annalise and Frank were working to protect them. There was only loose cannon Rebecca who could potentially blow their cover story out of the water, and given that they’d just accused her of killing Lila, she was certainly pissed off enough to do exactly that.

She knew what had to be done. And she knew that Frank would help her. She’d just never known that she was capable of it until now.


End file.
